XB1 has 60% less RAM bandwidth + less GPU cores than PS4?

So, while CPU Speed is still speculation, apparently it is more than just Memory Speed that is lesser on the Xbox/XBO/XBONE/whatever, compared to the PS4

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6972/xbox-one-hardware-compared-to-playstation-4/2

Base recap:

• PS4 has 50% more GPU Cores and Teraflops of Shader performance than the Xbox (from what I understand, Shader Performance really only matters for particles and stuff like Water/reflections, but GPU cores can be crucial for model complexity)
• PS4 has over 250% the Memory Speed of the Xbox
• PS4 has over 300% the Memory Bandwith of the Xbox (This is likely the most important one as far as game performance)
• Xbox has 32mb of embedded memory for the APU, which will likely help with some of the memory speed difference, but apparently doesn't make up the Memory Bandwith gap?

With that in mind, and the fact that they're using the same Architecture, they both will have the same ease of/difficulty of programming.

I'm not sure if this will just mean that Xbox versions of multiplatform games are going to look like a PC game running at medium settings, and a PS4 version will have them running at high, or they'll both look the same but the PS4 will be locked at 60 fps, and the Xbox 360 will be locked at 30, but it does make the (performance) gap this next gen potentially much more than 360/PS3, and potentially even bigger than Xbox/PS2.

I find this exceedingly saddening, because I really wanted to see them go through a bloody battle on showing why their version was better. Maybe we still will.

Edit: To clarify the intent of this post, as apparently my wording was poor. This has nothing to do with a "winner" of a generation being decided by the hardware. My concern is that I want multiplatform games to be easily made equal in quality on both platforms. As they both have the same ease of coding for the architecture, it is very possible that either the PS4s version of a game will be hampered from what it could be by the XB1 not meeting it's performance, or that XB1's version of a game will be less than stellar because it was optimized for the PS4.

When multiplatform games are equivalent on systems, it is very likely that platform holders will have to strive that much harder to make their unique offerings better, so we end up with better unique games on each system from first and second parties.

Edit: Got moved to the general forum during my above edit. Moving back to Xbox One forum.

so it's xbots for MS fans but pswhores for sony ones?

just want to get this out of the way. :)

@ripelivejam: I guess? I plan on getting both, because I hate not being able to play the few exclusives on a system that I'm sure will be great. Hell, I bought a WiiU mostly for ZombiU and Lego City Undercover

just needlessly stirring the waters :D

it may mean that xbone will come at a lower price for a good percentage of the same power. maybe even $300 price point. could give them the edge, as people may only see the name Xbox and the fact that it's new.

Xbox one Games have access to: 6 CPU Cores, 5Gb RAM and only 90% GPU power

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=564617

How many apps do you think can be run before it pops?

I'm a layman getting this deep into hardware architecture so take everything i say with a grain of salt until someone who knows better comes along but it sounds like the embedded ram in the XB1 could do something to balance the external DDR3's bottleneck.

Also there's still a factor of developing on the DirectX API...if developers find that more convenient then they may still stick with it if it's the industry standard though i've heard some developers find DirectX to be "limiting".

...moral of the story, "Still anyone's game".

@sin4profit: From a non-layman, the embedded ram will definitely help. But will not make up the entire difference (and won't make up enough difference to make the improvement from the PS4 negligable. It also won't help at all with the less GPU Cores the Xbox one has)

Edit: And if that Neogaf post is true, then only having 5gb of ram instead of 8 available to games, as well as having only 90% of the CPU available, could be even more hindering. However, we do not know the OS footprint of the PS4, so those could be equivilent. Although hiiiighly unlikely as the PS4 is running 1 OS, not 3.

This is par for the course. The Snes was much more powerful than the Genesis, the Playstation and the N64 had radically different designs, and the Xbox crushed the ps2 in terms of graphical horsepower in theory and in practice, but look who won that generation. The next generation's relative machining power will be very similar to the Xbox / ps2 split; however, the true winner in the war for the living rooms next generation is anyones guess.

@max_cherry: To be fair, the PS2/XBOX split was close to 2 years between launches, and Microsoft never had a good relationship with 3rd parties during it's generation.

However, yes, power does not equate "winning", although I think winning a console generation is a silly concept.

I really just hope that neither knocks the other completely out. Like Jeff, I really want a serious competition vying for the customer.

Edit: (I want a competition because manufacturers and producers fighting for the customer base is always better for the customer base.)

It can run the pizzahut app in conjunction with the topping app just fine, but overlaying the mountain dew and Doritos app will give you diabetes.

The winner of each generation is clearly decided by which system is most powerful. Right?

I mean, the PS3 handily defeated the 360. The original Xbox destroyed the PS2. All those things happened right? RIGHT?!?!

But in this generation both consoles use extremely similar tech, which is unprecendented. It doesn't mean the more powerful will "win", but it's potential effect is much larger this time around.

@huey2k2:

It was not my intent on the original post to imply that hardware differences would somehow decide a "winner". I was speaking more specifically on hopes that games could be much more easily identical on each platform. I will edit the post to make that clearer. My apologies on the confusion

(However, I'll state again, but thinking that there is a "Winner" in a console generation is a unusual concept that doesn't really work.)

I do think it is important that the new consoles are able to run the UE4 engine well.

Yeah the PS4 seems to be the more powerful of the two, while the XB1 seems to be focused on being a central entertainment system box. If i had tons of cash i'd get both, but I'm leaning towards PS4 currently even though I've had a 360 and loved it (still play it daily).

Without backwards compatibility i feel no loyalty to stick with microsoft, so it'll be the games that make the difference for me, and rarely do i care about exclusives and im not a huge graphics whore. So I'm still leaning towards the PS4 since they seem to be stressing a developer friendly policy.

I just wanna play GAMES dude! GAMES!

I'm, at this stage, getting a PS4 over the XB1 (I just can't commit to multiple platforms at this stage in my life), not because of the superior specs, but because I am much more comfortable with the direction Sony is taking vs Microsoft. It's nice to know I'll have the more powerful system I guess. I know, I know, wait for E3, blah blah. There's just no scenario in which I envision myself getting anything out of the XB1's non-gaming applications, and since the hardware of the system is so heavily compromised to make room for that crap, there's just no incentive for me to get the Xbox.

Ultimately I'd like to see the PS4 take the role of lead development platform this gen. Better to have the majority of games pushing the limits of the most powerful platform, rather than remaining mediocre and being ported up. If that makes sense...

The nice thing is that both systems are similar in terms of developing for them. Whichever one is more powerful can be the lead and they can simply scale down if they have to for the other. Much better then working for the lowest common denominator and then trying to scale up.

@eujin While we are still basing this on incomplete pictures of the machines, this is the best response I can personally provide.

The X1's memory architecture is more specifically designed for games and video vs the PS4's memory being better for extended heavy tasks. So, the PS4's memory is going to help CPU computations more while the X1's memory is leaning more toward GPU needs. The RAM bandwidth doesn't work in the way of "one is absolutely superior to the other"; they just work differently and have their own advantages. The X1 is clearly intending to be able to handle game and video visuals first and foremost, and the PS4 wants a more all around PC approach. Both are custom, dedicated gaming builds though, and so, any direct comparisons with traditional PC specs won't be as useful. The best way to understand it is simply that developers will have slightly different concerns with each, but they are primarily similar platforms. Certainly more similar than the last generation.

Their innovations in overall architecture should be interesting for PC work in the future though, and even while PCs will generally have stronger raw specs in the next few years, the X1 and PS4 have dedicated gaming architectures that will give them some advantages over designing for varied PC environments. Ultimately, these advances will serve the next generation of PCs and benefit all types of gamers no matter what platform they prefer.

The ps4 is clearly the right choice for us hardcore gamers going on what we have to go on as of now.

Are you sure you don't have it the other way around? The PS4's GDDR5 memory is intended to give the GPU and CPU the maximum efficiency when transferring data without having to worry about bottlenecks which in turn translates to rendering games "better/faster." The memory architecture in the X1 is designed for more all purpose needs and multitasking rather then efficient gaming. Which is why it needs ESRAM to try and close the gap between the PS4's GDDR5 memory and it's own.

@truthtellah: Your description of the memory architecture seem to be more accurate if the current ram setups were on discrete GPU/CPU's on separate dies like current PCs are(at least, as far as I understand of AMD's apu structure).

However, as they are both work on APUs with directly linked CPU/GPU processors (on the same die), both parts of the APU have direct access to all of the ram at once (Albeit if that Neogaf thread is to be believed, the XB1 only has 5gb available for games).

This would mean the 32mb of embedded memory on the XB1 will work as a way to more quickly load smaller bits of textures/other code into the primary (Slower) larger ram of the system. It also means that you can (nearly) combine the 102 gb/s memory bandwith of the embedded ram with the 68 gb/s memory bandwith of the system ram, however as you're rapidly and repeatedly moving smaller ram caches into a larger external pool, you're still introducing some latency, so you're probably looking at 130-150 gb/s rather than 170. From everything I've read about APUs in general, as the CPU/GPU both have access to the ram, and also have immediate communication with one another, having a larger faster single pool is always better for all types of operations (Games, extended storage, etc) than multiple and/or slower pools would be.

You are correct, we're going off totally incomplete pictures of the machines, and for all we know the constantly recording nature of the PS4 takes up 4gb of the ram anyway, so who knows. So while we are comparing oranges to oranges directly, these are theoretical oranges, and one of them may be sliced into quarters.

The GPU cores and shader bandwidth differences are a more apples to apples approach, though.

Edit: Also, now I want Crayola to make a "Theoretical Orange" color.

@truthtellah: My takeaway from the whole big picture is that it's gonna be good to be a PC gamer in about 1-2 years. Real good (on good hardware obviously). Can't wait to see PC versions of cross-plat games really take a huge leap forward. So exciting!

Not to mention, all this "Capcom didn't make a PC port of Dragon's Dogma, BOO" nonsense should basically come to a complete and total end, as all 3 major platforms will be x86, and stuff should be really portable. Yet another great aspect of what this new console generation will do for PC.

It's starting to sound they made fairly substantial compromises to the machine's gaming capabilities to support the instant task switching and more general entertainment functions.

Well, hopefully Sony's talk about making a game machine first and foremost is more than just talk. E3 should be great fun this year.

Nah, I definitely have it the right way around, at least based on how each company has explained their tech. The PS4's memory has the edge on CPU tasks, and the X1's memory has the edge on GPU tasks. The difference is the size of the buffer vs the speed of the transfer. Yet, as you noted, both consoles have custom solutions for dealing with the tradeoffs in their memory. Both want to be all-around machines, allowing for more flexibility for developers.

Though, to be honest, I need to hear more concrete details on their actual use in practice(more from devs than press events) before saying for sure. It is fully possible that Microsoft's OS setup will give some uncertain edge to Sony's console(which may have its own issues with its streaming tech and constant gameplay recording capability), but until I hear actual use cases, I can just speculate based on their basic design decisions and how they -say- it's supposed to work.

It is rumored to also have 3 billion less transistors . . . What a piece of shit.

Didn't the last console generation prove that all this kind of speculation is garbage?

I mean seriously, who even has the energy to get wound up about this kind of thing anymore.

With almost every game being cross platform anyways, the games will play to the lowest common denominator anyhow, so what difference does it make?

Yeah. I've seen too many PC gamers crapping on the new consoles, and it's stupid. These consoles are going to help in the improvement of PC gaming. Games will get better thanks to these new consoles, and future PCs will be better thanks to their architectural innovations. PC gamers have everything to gain from this. Heck, Microsoft is giving them a new cool controller that's even better than the current best PC controller besides a mouse and keyboard. PC gaming is only going to be better from the release and possible success of these consoles.

Interesting exchange Jonathan Blow had about it. Considering he does have a game coming out for PS4, take it with a grain of salt if you wish.

https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/337228544394543105

It sounds like a reasonable cost/performance tradeoff for the Xbox, considering their goals. They'll need to compete with Blu-ray players and other TV stuff in addition to the other gaming consoles after all. It's hard to say until the prices are announced, but I'm guessing that it's cheaper to manufacture than the PS4.

My guess is that big games will have to be more scalable in the future, now that porting costs should be more manageable with similar consoles and people are using PC's with a wider performance spectrum. I wouldn't worry too much about games being hampered by the weakest link because of that.

The gamecube much like the PS4(comparing it to the new Xbox) had more/better ram than the PS2 and a better GPU. How'd that work out for Nintendo...

The only real problem with this is that multiplatfrom games are usually made for the low end and ported up, not the other way around, so even with better hardware I think it's likely the PS4 versions of multiplat games will only be marginally different if at all.

Of course big name exclusives will try and take full advantage of the hardware, but even then I don't really expect anything to be worlds apart in terms of quality or design.

Part of the reason was ease of programming. Also, if Xbox 360 was the low end and they ported up to PC versions, many PC versions of games still looked better than Xbox 360 games. I still expect many games on high-end PCs will look better than their Xbox One and PS4 versions.

If developers decide that it's easier to work on PS4 first before trying to optimize for the Xbox One's cache to get close to the same performance level as PS4, it could lead to the PS4 being the lead platform and optimizing down to the Xbox One. While the gap isn't as large, it could work out similar to porting down to the Wii, especially if they decide to add in Kinect features as a differentiator. I don't know if developers will add anything special for Move.

This just in the, ps4 will be using 4.5 gb for their OS with 1gb of that being "flexible, used for both os and gaming"...No idea how this factors in, but I stumbled onto this thread and figured I'd help point you folks in the right direction.

WHO CARES!?

Teraflop is a funny word.

Some are reporting 3.5, but not even that is quite accurate, and nobody is reporting 4.5. Supposedly, this is the story from developers who know what they are talking about, and are posting about the situation on NeoGAF:

5.5 GB for games, 1.5 GB for the OS, and 1 GB reserved for future needs. Apparently, the OS could shrink in size at a later date as well. It seems the PS3 launched with the OS taking up 120 MB at launch, and Sony was eventually able to give developers 70 extra MB to work with by lowering that number down to 50 MB.

This was all the same talk before the PS3 and Xbox 360 came out and it amounted to nothing.

Oh man, some fud right here.

@spaceinsomniac: The source of the story is Eurogamer's Digital Foundry position. Sony has confirmed with them that there is what you would call "flexible memory" that is controlled by the OS but used for games, and then game memory and OS memory. They have refused to confirm the amounts and because they are still working on the OS they won't know for certain what they will need in the final product. But between 5 and 6 GB is a good guess.

BOOORING.

I'm sorry man, but who gives a shit. Honestly.

I'm gonna go back to watching the paint on my wall dry. More intellectually stimulating.

Holy crap who Necro'd my 2 month old thread?

I fixed it for you.
@eujin said:

What is it like to have a crystal ball?

They're trying to bring a mobile experience to a console. Trying to mimic the same speed and ease of access as a smartphone, except with MUCH better graphics is no easy feat. It's gonna cost these systems some power.

Right now, sony opting for gddr5 is the smartest choice.

PS3 was more powerful than the 360. So, uh, how was the frame rate on Bayonetta for PS3? And that Skyrim game you got going on PS3 how did that work out?

Specs are meaningless.

I must say they are interesting to look at though.

Just plan on buying both by the end of the cycle.

This is all well and good but how many graphiX does it have?